mexico's percentage of revenue gdp is not what it should be. some countries we are helping have to face up to the tough political decisions and there's many different ways to get the revenue you need, but i think we have to look at doing more to encourage them to step up and meet their own people's needs. >> i appreciate that and in the one minute remaining i know this committee because of the tremendous budget challenges would be delighted to help you the international monetary fund not long ago i took it was 2008 rose $11.3 billion loans that was approved for the tax vv to pakistan until they ponied up and did something about the tax issue something to true leadership and we look forward to continuing to work and think you for your leadership. >> mr. lewis? >> madam secretary, i wanted to

asked a question to say i look forward to other channels and opportunities to discuss the military -- >> thank you. i look forward to that. >> thank you, madame chair. i just want to make a comment about iraq, which i think you have addressed in your remarks but it's important we spent and will spend literally thousands of american lives, tens of thousands wounded of our brave men and women. we have spent and will spend trillions of dollars on that war heretofore and in the future for health care for those who came home and others support. it would be a disaster if we did not do the follow-up after the troops were gone such that iraq became an unfriendly nation or god forbid became a satellite

like lebanon of iran and iran of course as you know, madam secretary, is interested in just that and has invested in the elections and aspects of the iraqi economy, etc.. and so your statement your interest in having consulates throughout iraq fighting is brilliant as well as the work of the pentagon and their efforts. we are on this foreign operations subcommittee and madam chairman and also on the defense committee will want to say that that is an investment we must continue to make the best we've moved or throw away all of the sacrifices that this nation has put in. >> i agree, congressman. the things that keep me up at night, which are many and growing - to about five or ten

years seeing a situation like you are describing develop, where at least southern iran or maybe all the way up to kirkuk is largely under iran's influence and they lost their chance to be an independent arab nationalistic democracy and people say to us what were you thinking? you had this incredible war and you lost all these lives and have these veterans who are suffering. were you thinking? i don't want to answer that question saying well, you know, we decided once the military left we left because i think i would be really great tragedy and unfair to all the sacrifice that this country and particularly our brave young men and women have made. >> thank you madame secretary and madame chair. >> thank you, madam chairman. just one question for a little follow-up on mr. rothman. you are trying to manage a very difficult situation that really nobody anticipated.

we have the adversaries who didn't anticipate either but they are trying to exploit it. so from al qaeda and iran, what are they doing in egypt, what are they doing in libya and these other places. >> that's another thing that keeps me of that might come congressman cole. meter elon al qaeda had anything to do with these uprisings. now there are those who are of conspiratorially minded approach is and claim they do but there is no evidence of that, but there is no doubt they are going to try to get a vantage of everything that is happening everywhere. we know from our intelligence reporting, from anecdote reporting, our embassies, political officers the everywhere iran can to get in touch they are going to either directly or indirectly through proxies' like hezbollah and hamas. there is no doubt that

hezbollah, to go back to the question about bahrain that congressman schiff asked the hezbollah is an adult the late to influence bahrain and try to say you should be what we are and look at where we are with such a major influence in the lebanese government. you have got hamas on the border of egypt, you've got absolutely every reason to believe that with iran now supporting hamas they are going to be trying to do not they can do to influence the outcome. we are in a competition for influence all over the world right now. we are the leading power. we have enormous assets but in the asia-pacific we are competing with china and africa we are competing with china and africa we are competing with iran and latin america competing with china and increasingly iran. we are not in a static situation we have the luxury to say give us a few years and then we will get back in the game. so i think you're caution is a

very strong one and i would add this point is al qaeda has a presence in what is called al qaeda and the islamic monrad which is north africa. they had a presence to some extent in libya. they were suppressed like everybody else in libya was suppressed. but there is no doubt in my mind if they see an opportunity just as they saw an opportunity in somalia and they have seen in ghanem they are going to the decanter influence the outcome. so the united states is faced with a choice. we can stand on the sidelines and hope and pray for the best, we can get so involved that we are accused of interfering, going after oleo, chongging to occupy another islamic country where we can try to do what we are doing which is, you know, be smart about how we offer assistance, how we respond and bring the international community along and that is the

toughest of the options but that is what we are trying to do. >> thank you madame secretary. >> thank you. mr. schiff? >> thank you, madame chair. i'm curious about the egyptian decision to allow ships to go through the suez canal. it seemed like an odd out of step move coming on the heels of the military i think very quickly and strategically saying it would observe the peace treaty with israel. it just seemed out of the blue. can you shed any light on what motivated that? i also want to ask about pakistan. i was really discouraged to see not only the terrible assassinations of the governor pune job and the minority cabinet member but even more disturbing was the public reaction of pakistan which was to have the mass celebrations of the first and maybe somewhat diminished in terms of the second but tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people

celebrating in favor of the assassin to have the lawyers who had been advocating for the court now advocating for the assassin. it's so discouraging to me. are we losing the battle for hearts and minds of the are going to be celebrating assassins. where the victims are people preaching tolerance. >> well, first i don't have any insight other than that is a major source of revenue. so every ship that goes through pays a bunch of money and i think close to two injured thousand dollars came into the egyptian with the two ships going through so it should be something congress and as simple as we are desperate and need money and they want to go through. make sure they pay. i don't have any other information. with respect to pakistan would be tied to the budget because i share our concern. i met his family when i was in pakistan a year or so ago and i

deeply regret it and more and his murder and was appalled by the reaction in the country. the reaction when the minister was murdered was much more in keeping with what i would expect and hope for any country that when someone was a patriot that stood up for the rights of all of the pakistanis including the minority communities, the minority christian and the minority islamic communities was assassinated, people did speak out and were quite upset. we have a very difficult situation in pakistan. i don't want to sugar coat. when i became the secretary of state, i realized our public standing was as low in pakistan of any country in the world and there are many reasons for that.

but one of the problems was we were not really trying to respond to a lot of the criticism and a lot of the accusations. so when the question came - to from this side about the increase in personnel because we are beefing up hour public diplomacy we have a great story to tell about america and we are going to keep telling it and we are telling it under very difficult circumstances. our standing in pakistan is very difficult because there's just so much going on inside of the country itself. when i was here the first time in 09, i said the pakistanis needed to take on the extremists inside their own country and they've done that so there are things changing but it's a long way to go. >> thank you. >> mr. diaz-balart. >> thank you, madame chairwoman. mr. secretary, let me figure for those words on behalf of the

cause and i want to make a very clear, there is no doubt in my mind that you want freedom for the cuban people. no doubt in my mind at all. i just want to bring you go to the attention that if you look at the time when the mr. clapper was talking about, and i have it here i'm not going to quote it, but his statement where he talked about how the economy in that island is destroyed and the people on the verge of revolt because of its. this administration has these sanctions, and i would also then point out this on the hammes report and i'm not going to quote it but it talks about how the community to cubin employees to be to authorities of benefit from travel for u.s. visitors and then later goes on to say that the results suggest that for cuba the loosening of travel restrictions help offset the

decline and the arrivals from the global financial crisis. and it goes on. in the interest of time, madam secretary, i'd like to continue to work with you because it is evident that the loosening of the restrictions are frankly helping the regime, not helping at. it is helping to fund the regime at that time when this administration has said publicly on more than one occasion the situation in cuba, the economy is in dire straits, and yet, according to the imf and others, we are now being one of the -- the united states through travel

such as possibly the muslim

brotherhood. >> well, first we are working closely with of the so-called staff, the supreme council of the armed forces field marshal who is the head of the organization has served with a guardian and caretaker of the state of egypt and is also leading the transition to democracy. they are very pleased when among the first act was to issue a statement that they were going to respect the can't david accord and peace between israel and egypt and we want to encourage that and see that continue. i've seen the collapse of the interior department, the security system and the police force inside egypt has made a very difficult situation for the military even harder. so they are working for the information that would hamas and

we think that they are taking appropriate steps, but we are going to keep a close eye on that. we think that they understand the need to have an electoral system that doesn't favor any one group that makes it a free and fair election. we've made clear our policy is to support those who are committed of space values who are not involved in or endorsed the violence in any way who wish to participate in free and fair elections and it will be ultimately up to the e egyptian people to decide who the leaders will be, who they will select, but we want to be sure that they are given as much information as possible from other countries about how to run the elections that will produce results that keep democracy going because the last thing we want to see is one election and then it's over as some organized groups people are

mentioning looking at hungary and other places, look at iran. iran at the time didn't look like it would morphed into the police state it has become. so there are a lot of lessons and we and others are sharing our experiences with the egyptians. >> thank you madame secretary. >> thank you for your attention today and response as we appreciate you being here. we appreciate the job you've done and continue to do. this will conclude today's hearings. members may submit questions. madam secretary, the committee prospectus prompt response is sweet to make decisions on the fiscal year 2012 request. thank you again. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

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of that bill early next week. mr. president, it's time once again for us to get down to business. yesterday's budget votes didn't brings pwr*eu us any closer to -- didn't bring us any closer to a conclusion but it did bring one thing to our minds and it did that clearly. that lesson is this: one party alone cannot reach a resolution without the other party's consent. we sroetd on a -- voted on a republican proposal and the democratic proposal. neither vote came close to passing but the exercise wasn't in vain. we demonstrated publicly and on the record that we know that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. now it's time to find that answer and a budget that will reflect our values, keep the country running and create jobs. i can speak only for my caucus

when i say we accept the lessons of yesterday's vote. we know we'll have to make a sacrifice to each consensus and we're willing to do that. republicans have to be willing to move their position also. perhaps they're willing to finally acknowledge, given our deep debt, we can't afford government giveaways to millionaires and companies making big profits. mr. president, perhaps republicans are willing to offer more reasonable cuts the democratic caucus can support. by reasonable cuts, i mean cuts that don't arbitrarily kick head start students out of class or rob college students of their pell grants. both cuts the senate resoundingly rejected yesterday. what i mean is that these cuts that don't pull the plug on renewable energy jobs or cuts that fire thousands of workers at community health centers across the country. republicans should be willing,

mr. president, to look at our country's substantial budget and find cuts more worthy than those that would weaken law enforcement, border security to keep us safe. i hope they'll join democrats in saving money by attacking waste, fraud and abuse. i hope they will join us in making tough choices in avoiding the temptation to making counterproductive cuts. let's come together in a way that strengthens our economy. let's cut in a way that makes our neighborhoods, schools and borders stronger, not weaker. as the negotiation process begins anew, i remind my republican friends time is short. i also remind them that the deadline we face a week from tomorrow is a deadline that they set. we didn't set it. democrats warned from the start that the process would take a month. republicans would agree only to a period half as long as that: two weeks. those two weeks are up, as i said, next friday. so my message is this: our

republican colleagues, you should set the deadline and the responsibility meeting it is as much yours as it is ours. both parties also share the responsibility to be reasonable. so let's get to work. we cannot negotiate this in the media. we cannot negotiate this if we're unwilling to give any ground. we cannot be stubborn and expect a solution. it's time to negotiate in good faith. it's time for all political posturing to end. and it's time for pragmatism, which is long overdue. mr. president, i would also say to my friends in the house, the senate has produced two very, very strong jobs bills. one is the f.a.a. reauthorization, which is long overdue. it is a bipartisan bill, passed overwhelmingly here in the senate and would save or create 280,000 jobs. pretty good step in the right direction. over the last 24 hours we passed the patent reform bill. that will create 300,000 jobs.

these two jobs bills need to be completed by the house of representatives so we can send them to the president. these two jobs bills are important. the house should focus on jobs, not these arbitrary cuts that they have been making. i repeat, i would hope that the house would right away work on our jobs bills that already passed the senate. patents and of course the f.a.ae dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. sessions: mr. president, we had two important votes yesterday on what we're going to about the surging set that this nation is incurring and the dangers that debt poses to the future health of our economy, prosperity of our people, the employment of our people. we had a debt crisis, financial

crisis in 2007, and we still haven't recovered from it damaged us. it damaged american individuals. there are people employed -- unemployed today in large numbers because of that and we haven't yet recovered from it. we have some growth, but we have not come out of it. and we've got to deal with that in a serious way. so the proposal was, as passed by the house, to reduce the spending for the rest of this seven months in this fiscal year ending september 30th, b by $61 billion and our colleagues in the senate proposed to do nothing, basically, $4.6 billion reduction in spending over the rest of this fiscal year. that's an unacceptable number. perhaps we can disagree over where cuts ought to occur, but it's critically important at this time in history as i will discuss that we take real action

that sends a message. and that actually saves money. not washington speak about saving money, but real savings in money and we can do that. every city, county and state is doing that all over the country and far -- and far bigger deductions in spending than we're discussing here. so the house proposal was to reduce discretionary spending spending, $61 billion, which is about 6% reduction in the plan and spending level. that's not going to -- planned spending level. that's not going to destroy our country. it's still well above the levels we were spending in 2008. but that $61 billion, when calculated over 10 years, because it reduces the baseline of our government spending --

when we calculate our net savings of $862 billion counting interest. because it's at $61 billion every year plus the interest. and we pay interest on the debt we're running up. this year we started out projecting a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, the largest in the history of the republic, but now the scores have gone up and we're looking like ove over $1.6 trillion. $1,600,000,000,000. we take in $3.8 trillion -- just get this -- we take in -- no, we spend $3.8 trillion, but we're bringing in only $2.2 trillion. this is why 40% of what we are spending this year is borrowed. we have an opportunity now, this c.r. is it. we need to reduce spending now. you say, well, we can wait.

we don't want to reduce spending for some of our favorite programs. this is damaging. we hear the old speeches that sound like they were given 20 years ago about any proposal to cut any spending level as seen as some total disaster suggesting the republic will cease to exist. and, of course, americans know that's not so. they're not buying that. what world are we in? the president submits a budget that basically does nothing but continue the increase in spending. we just had the state department in the budget committee, i'm ranking republican on the budget, they're asking for a $10.00 -- 10.5% increase in state department spending. the department of education was in last week, they want 11%. the department of interior was in, the president proposed a

9.5% increase in their spending. increases, 2012, that's their proposal. what world are they in? what about transportation? you know what they proposed to increase transportation by? $62 billion excuse me -- 62%. this -- this -- what world are we operating in? all right. you say you just exaggerating, it's business as usual, we don't have to make any changes. we need to make investments, sessions. this country needs to have more investments. the state department had a 33% increase in two years. education department's had a 30% increase. i mean, when does it stop?

if you reduce some of the increases that's been obtained is that some real cut or is it just moving back to a more sane level? that's what it is. but when you don't have money, you have to make tough decisions. so, again, the question is, are you just raising this politically? you're just trying to make a political point or is it really something here that's happening in america that's dangerous and requires us to take this step whether we want to take this step or not? are we required to? is it real? do we have a crisis that's dangerous for us? this is what mr. erskine bowles, mr. bowles was president clinton's chief of staff. he was appointed by president

obama and co-chaired the debt -- debt commission that did their report. this is what he said the day before wed. both of them -- yesterday. both of them. this was a signed joint statement to the budget committee the day before yesterday. "we believe that if we do not take decisive action, our nation faces the most predictable economic crisis in its history." close quote. are these extremists? they spent months studying the crisis the nation is in, what it takes to get us out of it. they proposed some substantial changes in what we are doing. and just yesterday they said, we're facing a crisis, the most predictable this nation has ever faced in its history. in other words, you can see it coming. people say, oh, i -- it won't happen us to. well, they should probably pick

up the book, "this time it's different" by professor rogoff at rinehart, i believe, one of the great universities. their book proposes and shows how governments, sovereigns get into financial trouble and how quickly bad things can happen and the title it should tell you something. the title is "this time it's different." and the title suggests that all of these great financeers and these countries that ran up too much debt never thought it was going to happen to them. and when people raised questions they said, don't worry, this time it's different. well, is this an extreme book? is this a dangerous book? because they say that when your debt, based on history and worldwide studies, reaches 90% of your total economy, your total debt reaches 90% of your

g.d.p., your economy on average loses 1% growth and is at risk of a -- a catastrophic adjustment. some sort of crisis. well, what percent of g.d.p. are we now? we've gone over 95% and the experts tell us that by september 30th, when this fiscal year ends, we'll be at 100% of g.d.p. so is this some sort of fearmongerring talk or are we dealing with reality? are we really seeing a -- facing a crisis that we can see in front of us? mr. geithner, the secretary of the treasury, unlike the budget director, also testified before the budget committee, mr. geithner was more tbrang frank. when asked, did you agree with the rogoff study, is it a sound study? wre, i believe it is. and then he said this, frankly,

i think it understates the risk. understates the risk. when asked about that, he said, basically, there can be systemic immediate shocks that occur that are unple unpredictable like in7 when we went from a boon to a bust. these things happened in greece, ireland, iceland. these things can happen in this modern world of electronic financial transfer very, very quickly. now, i -- i believe we can prevent this. i believe we can prevent it. but we've got to take action or we're heading in the wrong direction. well, did you notice the news yesterday? bill gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund at pacific investment management, a tota total -- the big bond fund -- announced that they had totally

eliminated u.s.-government related debt from their flagship -- ship fund. "as the united states government projected record deficits." so that's a big development, frankly. i mean, he manages more money than anybody in the world, i guess, in the history of the world. he's eliminated government debt from the total return fund. and that was just announced. so is that something we should be concerned about? i think it is. because who's going to buy our debt? who will buy our treasury bonds at now 10-year bonds at 3.5% or so interest? people get worried about your debt. they sell their bonds, who's going to buy them? where are we going to get people to -- to buy our bonds without

paying higher and higher interest rates? and -- well, we're -- is our crisis coming upon us? let me share with you the testimony that mr. simpson and mr. bowles gave to the budget committee just two days ago. this is what mr. bowles said, co-chairman appointed by president obama. he's very wore wrid. " -- worried. "this problem is going to happen. it is a problem. we're going to have to face up to in maybe two years, maybe less. maybe a little more." close quote. he's talking about a crisis. he said it's the most predictable crisis the nation's ever faced. he's pleading with us to get off the course, the unsustainable path we are on. and then what about alan simpson, a great, distinguished

senator from wyoming who's so frank and articulate in his expressions. he's always a delight to hear. this is what he said -- quote -- "i think it will come before two years. i'm just saying at some point i think within a year, at the end of the year if they -- the people who hold our debt -- just thought you're playing with fluff, 5%, 6%, 7%, they're going to say 'i want some money for my favor.' if there's anything guys love, it's money. and money guys when they start hraougs money -- start losing money panic. and let me tell you they will, it won't matter what the government does then, they'll say i want my money. i've got a better place for it. just saying for me, it won't be

a year. do we have a time agreement? the presiding officer: the time expired some moments ago. a limit of ten minutes. mr. sessions: i thank the chair and wrap up and ask for two additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. sessions: let me add a few more things that have happened. in an analysis -- this is "the washington post," late january -- quote -- "in an analysis of the u.s. debt last week, s&p, standard & poor's, said the unthinkable could occur unless the u.s. officials take action. it goes on to say -- quote -- "the u.s. officials must act quickly to control government deficits or face slower growth or even more difficult choices in the future. the international monetary fund said thursday in a report

criticizing the tepid u.s. response to the rising debt. admiral mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, i believe that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security. close quote. secretary hillary clinton, secretary of state in the obama administration, quote, skater hillary clinton weighted into the debate calling the deficit a measure of weakness internationally. quote, clinton says the deficit is a national security threat. it was 1.3 when she said that. the deficit now is 1.3-plus. secretary geithner, as i indicated, said the same. mr. president, we've had a debate. we've had ten democrats. the effect from the democratic bill that did nothing saying we

needed to go further. two republicans defected, one independent defected probably thought it was cutting too much. but the majority of people seem to be saying we need to reduce more. i suggest our leaders get together, if there's a disagreement about where the reductions ought to occur, so be it, let's work that out. but we need to reduce spending significantly. the house number, in my view, is a minimal amount. i believe it will send a message to the world that this country is willing to take action, even tough action to get off the unsustainable path we are on. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont is recognized. mr. sanders: mr. president, i'm going to try to bring this budget debate down to earth and talk a little bit about the

reality of what's happening and go beyond -- there will be a lot of numbers that are out there. my good friend from alabama who sits with me on the budget committee makes the point that this country has a severe budget crisis. and he is right. he is right. the question is: how did we get to where we are today and how do we go forward in a way that is fair and responsible to address this crisis? and in that regard, the senator from alabama and i have some very strong disagreements. how did we get to where we were -- where we are today when not so many years ago, the day that george w. bush became president, we had a significant surplus? we had a surplus when clinton left office. now we have a major deficit crisis. well, there are a number of

reasons. number one, against my votes, we are fighting a war in iraq, which by the time we take care of our last veteran is going to cost us some $3 trillion. the war in iraq. i didn't hear any of my republican friends saying we can't go to war unless we figure out a way to pay for that. number two, my republican friends for years have been pushing huge tax breaks for the very, very wealthiest people in this country. i didn't hear them ask how that was going to be paid for. number three, under president bush, with strong republican support against my vote, congress passed a $400 billion-plus medicare part-d prescription drug program written by the insurance companies and the drug companies. drove up the deficit. number of course against my vote, congress voted for a

massive bailout of wall street. didn't hear too many people talking about how can we pay for that? $700 billion to bail out wall street; didn't hear them arguing that it was too much money, would drive up the deficit. now, the republicans yesterday, mr. president, brought forth and voted on h.r. 1, and almost all of them voted for it. and those that didn't actually wanted to go further. now, the main point that i want to make this morning is, a, we do have to address the deficit crisis. but, before, we have to address it in a way that is fair and is responsible, and not solely on the backs of working families, the middle class, the elderly, the sick and the poor. that is immoral. that is wrong, and that is bad

economics. to my mind, it is absolutely absurd that when my republican friends talk about deficit reduction, they forget to talk about the reality that the wealthiest people in this country today have never had it so good, that the effect of the real tax rate for the richest people in this country is the lowest on record, and that the wealthiest people in this country -- the top 2% -- have received many, many hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. so i ask my republican friends, why do you want to balance the budget on the backs of low-income children, low-income senior citizens, those that are sick, those that are vulnerable without asking the wealthiest people in this country who have never had it so good to put one penny -- one penny -- into deficit reduction? i think that is wrong, and the

american people think that is wrong. when we talk about deficit reduction, we have got to talk about shared sacrifice. everybody playing a role. not just little kids, not just the elderly, not just the sick. but even dare i say it, people who have a whole lot of money and who have never done so well. mr. president, i have not been impressed at how the media has been covering this issue because i think they have not made it clear to the american people how devastating the cuts are that the republicans want to impose on working families. let me just very briefly tick some of them off. the republicans want to throw over 200,000 children off of the head start program. every working family in america knows how hard it is today to

come up with affordable child care, early childhood education. we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. republican solution is slash head start by 20%, cut 200,000 kids off of head start and lay off 55,000 head start instructors. mr. president, you well know that the cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college while many others are graduating deeply in debt. republican solution? slash pell grants by $5.7 billion and reducing, reduce or eliminate pell grants for 9.4 million low-income college students. middle-class families, working-class families, you hear that? we're going to balance the

budget by either eliminating or lowering pell grants, the ability of young people to go to college, for over 9 million college students. now i know in my office we get calls every week from senior citizens, people with disabilities, widows who are having a hard time getting a timely response toward their social security claim. it takes too long to process the paperwork. what the republicans want to do is slash the social security administration, the people who administer social security for seniors, for the disabled, for widows and orphans by $1.7 billion. and that means 500,000 americans who are legally entitled to social security benefits will have to wait significantly longer times in order to receive them. mr. president, we have 50 million americans with no health insurance today, 45,000

americans die because they don't get to a doctor on time. last year i worked very hard with a member, many members of the senate to expand community health centers so that more and more low- and moderate-income people could walk into a doctor's office, get health care, dental care, mental health counseling. republicans want to slash in h.r. 1, the bill they voted for yesterday, they want to deny primary health care to 11 million americans, at a time when state after state is cutting back on medicaid. what are you supposed to do if you're 50 years old, you have a pain in your chest, you don't have any health insurance? where do you go? and republicans want to deny health care to another 11 million americans. mr. president, for the poorest people in this country, community services block grants provide the infrastructure, the ability to get out emergency food help, emergency help to pay

the electric bill, liheap, they are the infrastructure in this country that protects the poorest and most vulnerable people. republicans want to slash $405 million from the community services block grant. that is wrong, and the president's proposed cut to the community services block grant is also wrong. we have in real terms 16% of our population today, our workforce is really unemployed. if you add together the official unemployment, those people have given up looking for work. those people who are working part time want to work full time. republicans want to slash $2 billion in federal job-training programs. republicans want to slash $400 million in liheap. in liheap. that is the program that in my state and all over this country enables people to stay warm in the wintertime. we have a lot of senior citizens in the state of vermont getting

by on $13 thousand, $14,000 a year income. they need help. it gets cold in vermont. it gets 20 below zero. you've got to stay warm. people don't have the income. liheap has been a very valuable tool. republicans want to slash $400 million from liheap. they want to slash the e.p.a., environmental protection agency, by 30%. these are the people who have successly enforced the clean air act, the clean water act, so that the air we breathe doesn't give us asthma, doesn't provide us with a soup which makes us sick. the clean air act has been an enormous success in cleaning up our air. the republicans want to slash that by 30%. republicans want to cut the women and infant nutrition programs. this is the program that provides the -- the w.i.c.

program that provides supplemental nutrition programs for women, infants and children. they want to cut that by $750 million. poverty in america is increasing. what we understand is that pregnant women and little kids do not get good nutrition, the likelihood is that they're going to get, that the births might be low weight opbd the little babies -- or the little babies might come down with illnesses if they don't get good nutrition. poverty is increasing, yet the republicans want to cut the w.i.c. program by $750 million, 10%. title 1 education funding. everyone understands we have problems with education right now, large dropout rates. republicans want to cut $5 billion from the department of education. on and on and on it goes. now, what do i think? do i think that it's appropriate that we balance the budget on low-income pregnant women and

infants who need nutrition? do i think you should throw 200,000 kids off the head start program, do i think that you cut social security, do i think that you cut unplanned parenthood? does that make sense? i don't think so. i don't think that's good for america. but i do believe we have to move toward a balanced budget. what is one way to go forward other than savage cuts on programs for the most vulnerable people in this country? and that is i think we have got to begin talking about revenue. not just cuts. mr. president, today i will be interuse iuseinter -- introducig legislation, which does two things. number one, it creates a millionaire surtax used for deficit reduction. 5.4% surtax on income

over $1 million. all households that have income over $1 million will pay a 5.4% surtax on that income which will go into a -- an emergency deficit reduction fund. just doing that, asking millionaires to pay a little bit more in taxes, after all of the huge tax breaks they have received, will bring in approximately $50 billion a year. now, mr. president, i think that that is a good idea, but it is not just me who think it is a good idea. recently last week there was an nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, they asked what is the best way to go forward on deficit reduction? 81% of the american people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the tef sit. the -- the deficit. the american people get it.

they understand you can't move toward deficit reduction just by cutting programs that working families, the middle class, low-income people desperately need in order to survive in the midst of this terrible recession. they understand that serious, responsible deficit reduction requires shared sacrifice. it is insane -- and i use that word advisably, it is insane to talk about deficit reduction as my republican friends do on one hand and say, oh, yes, we have to give hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax breaks to the top 1%, top 2% when those guys are doing phenomenally well, seeing an effective tax rate lower than it has been in decades and receiving tax breaks already. why does anyone think it is moral or rate to move to deficit reduction on the backs of the weak and the vulnerable?

i understand, and i know something about politics, i do understand that the parents of kids who are in head start do not make large campaign contribution contributions. and i -- campaign contributions. and i know the senior citizens who need some help with social security do not make large campaign contributions. i understand that the college students trying to go through college on a pell grant do not make large campaign contributions. there is a sense of morality that we have to make here. i think it makes no sense. i think it is immoral, i think it is bad economics to balance the budget on the backs of working families while we give continued tax breaks to those people who don't need it. so, mr. president, today we will be introducing a piece of legislation which i hope will have strong support. i think it paves the way for us to go forward in serious deficit reduction in a way that is fair.

do we need to make cuts? absolutely. absolutely. but do we also need to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start contributing toward deficit reduction? i think we do. so, once again, the legislation that i've introduced today creates a millionaire's surtax of 5.4%, which would bring in about $50 billion a year to be used exclusively for an emergency deficit reduction fund and we also end tax breaks for big oil and gas companies which would bring in abou about $3.5 billion a year. over the past decade the five largest oil companies in the united states have earned nearly $1 trillion in profits. meanwhile in recent years some of the very largest oil companies in america have paid absolutely nothing in federal income taxes. in fact, some of them have gotten a refund, a rebate from the i.r.s. so that is my plea.

my plea is that, yes, the need for deficit reduction is real. it is urgent. let's go forward. but let's go forward in a way that is fair and responsible and not simply on the backs of the most vulnerable people in it country. and, with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.mr. presiden. i ask unanimous consent to end the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i, too, take the floor of the senate to urge all of us, democrats and republicans alike, to focus on the single

biggest domestic threat to our country, our single greatest challenge in the eyes of every louisianaian, every american i know, and that is to stop this runaway spending and debt. mr. president, americans all around the country, certainly louisianaians all around my state, understand that this is a grave threat to our economic future, and it's not just some vague threat to generations two and three away from us. this is an immediate threat because the path of spending and debt we're on is completely unsustainable. we must come together in a bipartisan way. we must act. we must solve this real and pressing problem before it's an immediate crisis. and, mr. president, -- excuse me -- mr. president, i think we should clearly do that well before the need -- any need for an increase in the debt limit

arises, well before this congress reaches a crisis atmosphere over the need for an increase in the debt limit. for all of these reasons, mr. president, i've joined together with p.m. of my colleagues -- many of my colleagues. i sent the majority leader, senator reid, a letter today. first let me thank all of my colleagues to join me on this letter: senator sessions, tuohey, ensign. the letter is very simple and very straightforward. it says that this is the greatest challenge we fairks and it says that because of that we need to face it. we need to debate it, we need to talk about it, weefnedz to act, and we need to start doing that now well before any significant

deadline like when the debt limit may have to be increased. so the letter says, mr. leader, we're going to oppose moving to any other bill that doesn't directly address this crisis when we need to act on this grave threat. let me read relevant portions of the letter, because i think it goes right to the point p. "dear leader reid, yesterday the senate voted on two proposals to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, but this debate gave us only a limited opportunity to discuss what americans know is the crucial issue of our time: cutting government spending and dramatically reducing our national debt. additionally, no member of the senate was permitted to offer amendments under the structured process, which in our opinion prevents a full, open, and robust debate. with our national debt poised to reach its $14.3 trillion limit

in the very near future, taxpayers expect congress to work together to reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending and be more vigilant about how we spend public funds. the american people want congress to deal with the tough issues of cutting spending and almost every member of the senate has agreed that we must address our fiscal situation immediately. while there are certainly many issues that warrant the senate's consideration, we feel that the senate must not debate and consider bills at this time that do not affirmatively cut spending, directly address structural budget reforms, reduce government's role in the economy so businesses can create jobs or directly address this current financial crisis. the american people resoundingly rejected the way the senate waited until christmas eve as a mechanism to force hurried debate on president obama's massive health care legislation.

voting to proceed to another legislative measure effectively runs away from the central issues of spending and debt and repeats that flawed process. we, therefore, are notifying you of our intention to object to the consideration of any legislation that fails to directly address this crisis in a meaningful way. our objections would be withheld if the senate agrees to dedicate significant floor time to debate this issue well in advance of the federal government reaching our statutorily mandated debt limit. sincerely -- "and again it is signinged by bone myself, senator sessions, rubio, demint, paul, lee, toomey, and ensign to the majority leader. and, again, mr. president, the statement is clear: this is a crisis. we need to act certainly before

we reach the statutory debt limit. so what are we waiting for? let's act now. let's not move to other cats and dogs bills that may be positive legislation but can certainly wait. let's move to the people's business. let's move to the absolute top challenge we face domestically as a cufnlt let's come together and debate, vote on, an hopefuly begin to solve this problem of unsustainable spending and debt. now, mr. president, to do that, we also need leadership, ideas, suggestions, and i believe we have provided that on this side of the aisle and we would welcome ideas, suggestions, concrete proposals from all members. let me just list the more than two dozen pieces of legislation that go directly to this issue. let me just list some of them.

senate bill 14 by senator ensign to establish the commission on congressional budgetary accountability and review of federal agencies. senate bill 81, an isakson bill to direct unused appropriations for senate pernld and office expense accounts to be deposited into the treasury and actually reduce the federal debt. senate bill 102, a mccain bill, which requires o.m.b. to transmit to congress a message with specified information requesting any rescission the president proposals under the procedures instituted under that act. senate bill 162 by senator paul to cut $500 billion in federal spending in fy 2011. a senate bill 163, by senator toomey, the full faith and credit act to prioritize principal and interest payments when and if the debt limit is reached. senate bill 178, by senator dees

mint to reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion through fiscal year 2021. senate bill 245 by senator corker, his so-called "cap" act to create a discretionary spending cap for congress. senate bill 259. this is my bill to prioritize social security payments, if and when the debt limit is reached. senate bill 360 by senator inhofe to create a point of order to exceed nonsecurity discretionary limits and also to create spending limits for fiscal years 2017 to 2021. senate bill 389 by senator kirk, and i believe senator hatch has a very similar bill, to establish a commission to review cost control. senate bill 391 by senator moran

to reall unobligated balances of president obama's stimulus bill. senate joint resolution 3 by snare hatch, a balanced budget amendment. and senate joint resolution 4 by senator shelby on the same topic. and senate joint resolution 5 by senator lee on the same topic. this is a long list but it's certainly not exhaustive, mr. president. i just read a partial list to make the point: we're coming up with ideas, proposals, solutions. we encourage every senator of every party to come up with ideas, proposals, solutions and let's actually talk about the greatest face -- threat we face as a country. let's talk about it now. let's debate it now. let's exchange ideas in a positive atmosphere now, well

before we reach any crisis atmosphere over the debt limit. again, mr. president, i respectfully urge the distinguished majority leader, senator reid, to heed our call to take up our call to arms, to read our letter and react by creating identified time on the floor, well before we reach the statutory debt limit, to debate and pass solutions on this crucial topic. again, mr. president, i don't think there is debate that this isn't the greatest challenge we face as a country, that this isn't the greatest economic threat we face. so, quite simply, what are we waiting for? we need time to bring forth these ideas and exchange them and debate them and act. we need time to do this well before the statutory debt limit

is reached. we need to do the people's business in a reasonable way, in a sober atmosphere, not in an atmosphere of hysteria or threats when the debt limit would be reached in a matter of days. with that, mr. president, i urge all of my colleagues to join us in this effort, to come to the floor with your ideas, your proposals, and let's do the people's business. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that our letter be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: mr. president, i also ask unanimous consent that this partial list of republican solutions and proposals be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. proposal

department of education. this is live coverage on c-span 3. >> despite this year's projected budget deficit of $1.6 trillion, the administration has put forward a plan for the next

decade that includes $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.5 trillion in new taxes, and $13 trillion in new debt. proposing a budget that once again spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much is not the kind of leadership america deserves. i'm disappointed to see this lack of leadership in the administration's budget proposal for the department of education which includes a request for $48.8 billion in so-called, quote, nonpel discretionary spending. closed quote. this is a new term or phrase for washington and it attempts to conceal the true costs associated with the proposal. behind this gimmick lies an additional request for $28.6 billion in discretionary spending for the pell grant program, as well as $12.6 billion in mandatory costs, a total request of $41.2 billion for the program. here's the bottom line. the department is asking to spend nearly $90 billion during the next fiscal year, a 31%

increase in the department's budget from the time the president took office. shouldn't have to tell anyone here that this kind of spending is unsustainable and keeps pell grants on the path to bankruptcy. we have to make tough choices to ensure the important program remains available for the students who need it most. when in the future is a goal we share but it can't be won through record spending and record debt. it's time we change the status quo, not only in how we approach our fiscal future but also in the way we support our nation's education system. it's no secret our current

in this committee we learned from school officials that regulatory burden

as you know, mr. secretary, a bipartisan coalition of members believes that gainful employment regulations to the department is working on are the wrong approach to encouraging accountability and transparency in higher education. i strongly urge you, especially in light of last month's overwhelming bipartisan vote, to withdraw this job destroying proposal. the time has come to chart a different course. as we work to answer the question about the appropriate role for the federal government in education, one thing is for sure, it must be less costly and less intrusive. across the nation americans have demanded washington make tough choices to get our budget in order and put our nation back on the path to long-term prosperity. the day of reckoning is here and the time to demonstrate the leadership our country needs is now. like forward to your testimony, mr. secretary, and working with you in the days ahead. i would like to recognize the distinguished democratic member on the committee, mr. miller, for his opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

welcome back, mr. secretary. this is the fourth time we've had the privilege of having you before this committee since you were named secretary of education. each time you've told us about the work the obama administration is doing to beca

while others

there is no excuse for letting this continue in a country as great as ours. it's time we decide as a nation we can no longer afford to stay average. we can't afford to lose a generation of children because our best intentions don't work as well as they should have. we need to change in our federal education policy is a mystery to most people. we have to update the law of student and national needs through college and career ready standards, modernize teaching and the learning work force and recognize that teachers and leaders are professionals they are. we need to reevaluate the federal role in education. as we discussed last week we need to maintain accountability but most provide state and local districts more flexibility in how they appropriately address those needs and achieve those outcomes. i know we can get this right. our students can't afford to wait longer and i look forward to hearing you and thank you for

taking the time to brief the committee. >> i thank the gentleman. pursuant to committee rule 7 c all committee members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the permanent hearing wror. the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow statements, questions for the records and other material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. before i introduce a very briefly somebody who to this committee really needs no introduction i want to make an administrative announcement, the secretary has a hard stop time at 5:00. so i would encourage my colleagues to abide by the five-minute rule as we go through, we will, of course, be affording the secretary as much time as he needs to give his testimony. and then try to keep it moving so all members have a chance to ask the secretary questions. the honorable arne duncan the current u.s. secretary of honee

current secretary of education. prior, he served as chief executive officer of the chicago public schools from june, 2001, to december, 2008, becoming the longest serving big city education superintendent in the country. congratulations to you, sir. as ceo mr. duncan was widely credited for pursuing an aggressive agenda that included opening more than a hundred new schools, expanding after school and learning programs, and closing down under performing schools. and it goes on and on but i think every member of the committee knows this. let me just say, mr. secretary, you are now recognized and welcomed again. >> thank you so much for this opportunity to come before you again and talk about president obama's education agenda. last week i spoke before the senate budget committee and emphasized our administration's dual commitments to reduce spending and are more efficient

while investing in education to secure our future. these investments spanned every grade from early learning to pell grants and they are reflected in my written statement. i expect they'll be vigorously debated and discussed in the coming months as congress works to pass the budget. i'm happy to discuss those issues here today. before i do, however, i want to speak to the policy changes we must make in order to strengthen american k-12 education. a year ago we released a 41-page blueprint for rewriting the elementary, secondary education act. most of you may be familiar with the core elements of our proposal so i'll be brief and open it up to our conversation. our goal is to create a law that is defined by three simple words -- fair, flexible, and focused. when we say fair, we mean a system of accountability based on individual student growth, one that recognizes and rewards success and holds all of us accountable for the quality of education we provide to every single student in the nation.

this is a change from the current law which simply allows every state to set an arbitrary bar for proficiency and measures only whether students are above or below that bar. we don't know how much students learn each year. we don't know what we need to do to get over that bar. we can't recognize and reward the great teachers and principals beating the odds every single day. current law also sets annual targets for proficiency and mandates that every student meet those goals by 2014. today almost 40% of america's schools are not meeting those goals and as we approach the 2014 deadline that number will rise steeply. in fact, we did an analysis which shows that next year based upon this year's results, next year the number of schools not meeting their goals under ncob could double to 80%, even if we assume that all schools will gain as much as the top schools

in their respective states. let me say it one more time. four out of five schools in america would not meet their goals under ncob by next year. this is why we have to fix the law now. no one can support inaction and maintain status quo. i do not think that all of these schools are failing by any means. they have challenges, big challenges, small challenges, and they need to meet them because every single child counts. but current law does not distinguish between them. and we have to do that. we need to distinguish that if we're going to address the real problems. the consequences under the current law are very clear. states and districts all across america will have to intervene and more and more schools each year implementing the exact same interventions regardless of those schools or those students' individual needs. if that happens, the schools with the widest gaps and the lowest achievement won't get the

help and attention they need. and that worries me deeply because the whole point of the law is to make sure that the schools and students most at risk are served. we have to be thoughtful in our approach. ncob's requirement to just aggregate student achievement data for low income students, minority students, english language learners, and students with disabilities completely changed the national conversation and we can no longer look the other way as some groups of students languish while others thrive. the law reflects our fundamental aspiration that every single child is expected to learn, to achieve, and to succeed. however, we give ncob less credit for actually helping to close achievement gaps by mandating and prescribing one size fits all solutions ncob took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to the unique needs of their students and that is fundamentally flawed. this law is fundamentally broken and we need to fix it and we

need to fix it this year. it has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. we want to get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair, flexible, and focused on the schools and the students most at risk. we need a common sense law which strikes the right balance between accountability and flexibility. and the basic problem is that ncob got that backwards. instead of being tight on goals and loose on means of achieving that, the law is loose on goals but tight on the means, from a management standpoint that simply doesn't make sense. we need to flip that and states are already leading us in the right direction. first of all, many states are developing robust data systems so they can measure student growth. second, and more important, 41 states plus d.c. have voluntarily adopted college and career ready standards so the bar has been raised.

states appreciate the flexibility and the support we are providing in other ways as well. at their request, last week we gave all governors a document explaining how they can shift around federal funds to better meet their local needs. we also gave them a second document showing how they can be more productive and efficient as they work to balance their budgets in these very tough economic times. we all need to be sharing good ideas and best practices to make due with -- to do more with less. but they're also begging us for more flexibility in getting their students over the bar set by ncob, which is why we need to fix the law. under our proposal, when schools and districts of states make gains, we'll reward them with resources and flexibility. but if schools boost overall proficiency while leaving one sub group behind, that simply is not good enough. every school, every single school must ensure that every child is being served. schools must serve annual targets of improvement for all

students and sub groups. and if achievement gaps are not closing each year, districts and states must intervene. we'll challenge them. not only around achievement gaps but also on their use of title one dollars and we'll further challenge them on the distribution of effective teachers and comparability in funding. finally, if schools persistently under perform we'll target them much more seriously and that gets to the third word i mentioned at the beginning, which is focused. we don't have unlimited resources. we must focus on the schools, the communities, and the students most at risk. congress has been generous with us in recent years and by providing $4 billion for school improvement grants, that money will help fix thousands of our nati nation's lowest performing schools, that we can't simply stand idly by and watch. president obama and i visited one of these schools last friday in miami accompanied by the former florida governor jeb bush. the school has new leadership,

some new staff, and new curriculum, more time for learning, and, best of all, a new climate of energy, hope, and determination that is already generating measurable progress in the classroom. i can't tell you how inspiring the visit was. both teachers and students were so thankful for the opportunity to gather to create a much better learning environment. and today across the country nearly a thousand schools are undergoing similar transformations and each year we will add more. this is tough work, controversial work, tough medicine. but when schools are not making progress, we have a moral obligation to demand dramatic change. children cannot wait for an education. they can't take a year or two off while administrators tinker around the edges. now, nothing about our proposal for reauthorization alters our historic commitment to serve populations that need extra support or hold schools accountable for the academic success of these students. that includes low income

children, students with disabilities, english language learners, rural students, and others. our commitment to help the children who need the most support is stronger than ever. as our proposed 2012 budget shows, 84% of our funding is for formula programs like title one and ida. in fact, we want to increase funding for both of these programs, but formula funding alone won't move the needle fast enough. we also need to provide some incentives to states and districts and local communities to embrace new, bold reforms. as you know, congress gave us a unique opportunity to develop a state level grant competition called race to the top. this program accounts for less than 1% of annual spending on k-12 education in america. but it has helped unleash more creativity, more change, more collaboration, more positive and productive activity at the state and local level than any other program in history. it has done so by avoiding one

size fits all man dates and providing flexible funding to give state and local leaders the opportunity to develop comprehensive solutions on their own. i want to work with you and with local leaders to design the next round of this program, a district level competition, that includes a carve out for rural school districts. rural districts are absolutely willing to compete but they need a level playing field and it's unfair to ask small districts where school administrators are often doing double and even triple duty as coaches and bus drivers to compete directly with large districts who might have full-time grant rights. i fully understand the competitive programs serve only a share of the student population. but the real measure of competitive programs like race to the top is not the direct impact they have on students but rather the indirect impact they have on the entire system. a dozen states receive funding from us, but 41 states raise standards. and that's a game changing victory for the country and long term for our country's economy.

our education system was designed more than a century ago and it has simply not changed with the times. it must change to prepare our students for the new century. we must try new approaches to teaching, new ways of using technology, and better systems of monitoring progress. the only way to get better results is by replacing what doesn't work with what does. competition can help drive innovation and take the best ideas from around the country to scale. and we must also have the will to change right here in washington. our department must continue to support and encourage innovation, not force compliance. we must continue to work together in a bipartisan way to rewrite the law. this requires real courage to move beyond our differences and to find common ground around basic principles of fairness and flexibility. we're more than halfway through another school year. let's challenge ourselves to give states and districts and communities the support and the

flexibility they need before the start of the next school year. and let's do it with everyone at the table. reform is most effective and sustainable when developed collaboratively with our teachers and their leaders. race to the top proved it. our denver conference last month was another step forward and rewriting esda can further strengthen the relationship between policy makers and practitioners in our nation's classrooms. at the end of the day the best way to make a difference in the classroom is with effective, well supported teachers. the best way to achieve that is with stronger recruiting and training programs linked to rigorous teacher and principal evaluation systems. that work is under way all across america. if we do our part by fixing the law, we can accelerate that progress. the urgency for change has never been greater. the plain fact is that america is stagnating while the rest of the world moves ahead of us. the plain fact is that to lead in a new century we have no

choice in this matter but to invest in education. no other issue is more critical to our economy, our future, and our way of life. so i look forward to working with you in the coming months to meet this challenge and to renew our commitment to our children and their future by building the education system they desperately need and deserve. thank you so much. i'm now happy to take your questions. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. thanks again for being with us as ranking member said for the fourth time. thanks again for your willingness to work with us in a bipartisan way. and thanks for your testimony. i was pleased to see in your budget elimination of some 13 programs. that's sort of a baby step in the right direction i might say. because last week the gao released a report that found there was widespread duplication, including around 80 federal programs focused on

improving teacher quality. so even though your budget request consolidates some of this, my question is, why didn't you do more? is there something you're still exploring? or it just seems to me that one of the easiest things that we ought to be able to do, you and the administration, us here, is to eliminate much of this duplication. >> that's a great point. we have to continue to work with the administration. many of these programs are actually in our department, not in our department but in others. we need to work better together. absolutely committed to doing that. we consolidated 38 programs to 11 which is a significant step in the right direction. we eliminated about 13 programs as you said. we continue to do this hard work every single year. >> okay. i look forward to continuing to work with you. i assure you we're looking at that here and will continue to do so. it is very important that you provide the leadership and the first step in the administration in doing that. we'll do our part. but i appreciate that you made

the first step. i was always hoping for a bigger step and i hope that we'll get to one of those. i've got a question for the record. i don't expect you to answer it here now. but i am concerned that there has been some information coming to light lately, been reported much in the news, about the gainful employment rules and some short sellers and some contact with the department. i'm not going to put you on the spot here now but we will be looking for an answer for the record. we'll reach you later. one of my favorite subjects, and that's funding for individuals with disabilities, special education, you may recall that last year the department came forward with a $250 million increase that was labeled by one of my colleagues as budget dust, a view that i hardly concurred in. and this year you've asked for $200 million, even less. and i will freely admit that this is a bipartisan problem where we say republicans and democrats that we need to do

something to come closer to or to meet the federal government's, what i think, is obligation of providing 40% of that actual planning. we're at about 17% now. and so i know that, believe me, i know that fiscal times are hard but you were able to find $900 million for more for race to the top and $350 million more for the investing in innovation fund and it just seems to me that our priorities aren't right. we had an amendment on the floor during the continuing resolution to restore money, which to special-ed, which i thought was mistakenly taken out. we didn't all agree so i know that is hard but it's where my priority is and again i appeal to the administration and your budget and your setting priorities to make that a higher priority. what are you thinking about that? >> i absolutely appreciate your

passion on this. it's one i felt in chicago with unfunded liabilities there. they are $58 million for infants. we'd love to do more. you know these are very tough budget times. what i would ask you to consider is that when we have states across the country raising standards and really raising the bar, every single child benefits, particularly those children where historically standards have been dummied down and those are students with disabilities. when we're asking to have every single high school graduate be college and career ready the greatest beneficiaries are those students who historically haven't had those kinds of opportunities, students with disabilities. so both through direct and indirect funding and by changing behavior at the state and local level, i'm convinced we have a much better chance to help every single child fulfill their potential, regardless of ability or disability. >> and i applaud your passion and your determination and worth while for us to continue the

discussion. i just know and everybody in this room knows that every school would benefit by special education funding. some of these other things are controversial, not agreed to by everybody, some benefit, some don't benefit. but schools in this country are shifting money to meet the requirements of idea and increasing tensions among parents and other students and i just would again encourage the department and the administration to take a look again at those priorities and of course we'll be doing that as we go forward. >> we're also challenging folks so there are clearly significant unmet needs. we recognize that and realize that. on the flip side, we're also chal e challenging folks to think very creatively in this area. let me give you a couple examples. many students who enter special education enter because they are learning disabled, l.d. many students get labeled that because they weren't taught how

to read before third grade. and so we're pushing folks very, very hard and these often are minority boards which really push districts to embrace early literacy, to work hard with students having difficulties. if we teach them how to read to keep them out of special education. what is amazing to me mr. chairman is once a student enters special education they almost never exit. >> exactly. >> stays with them for life. we can do a much better job of preventing students from having that label early on, if there are significant needs let's do it. the other thing is really looking at transportation. we have children who are on a bus by themselves at about $35,000 a year. it would be much cheaper to buy that family three or four cars. >> right. >> than to put them on one school bus every single year. so we need to continue to increase funding but we also need to really be thoughtful and are we being efficient in the use of scarce, scarce i.d.e.a. funds? >> i'm sure in many cases we're not but we are so far off in the funding i'm just asking that you

look at that in terms of priority. i'm way past my time. i yield back. thank you. on the last point i look around california and i see what some school districts are doing, really simple dynamics, but taking children that otherwise almost out of default would end up in special education are not. some of it is a question of visual aids, glasses, what have you. some muscle coordination. the l.a. school district is showing a huge amount of promise in helping us reduce that. mr. secretary, as i said in my opening statement, and i think you confirmed it in your statement. we've really got to get to the reauthorization. when i listen to the last two panels in the two hearings that we had in this committee, we're now seeing a level of sort of dynamic movement in states and

districts be they rural or be they large urban districts across this country with the use of data that not only allows them to tell the districts and the public how the children in those districts are doing but also now to delineate how their teachers are doing, which classes need additional assistants, which individuals can use additional professional development, and really starting to make moves now on driving performance based outcomes that we really didn't have the capability, we speculated about and a lot of people said that's what they're doing and it turned out it wasn't. but now with robust data systems, we really see the level of cooperation between principals and superintendents and classroom teachers on a real time basis and being able to get the children in need on a realtime basis as opposed to waiting for october of the next year, you know, when kids have

selected classes and moved to different schools and you start all over again. and it seems to me that we have the ability to move away from this, as you said, one test on one day, to judge a whole school system on, that's really not an accurate reflector. under the terms of no child left behind you really can't reward the work of people who made remarkable improvements but won't reach it the way it's set up by the state, nothing to do with the school, to do that. so i would hope one of the things that comes out of this hearing is that we have to move. and i think we now have an ability to create a system of data that is transparent and, more importantly, understandable to parents and to students and to teachers and to the community that really then calls into question what is our role in monitoring and sort of the lever

pulling we've done over the last 30 years to really be able to back out of some of that because i think if the data is properly collected, if it's properly published, communities will stand in on our behalf. the best economic driver in the community is a good school system. the real estate association will tell you what the first question is families ask, what district is this home in? and so i think we have a chance to provide some substitution for what has been a tough federal role for a good reason. there were a lot of kids that were invisible. they're no longer invisible and they're not going to go back to being invisible. i would just hope that we could figure out how we get the train on the tracks here because i think there's very substantial improvements that could be made and really allow the dynamics that we now see taking place in a lot of mixed districts across the country on behalf of students and their performance

and their out comes. >> i couldn't agree more. i'm hopeful. i have extraordinary respect for your long-term commitment to this, great working relationship with the chairman. the senate is working very, very hard on this. i think for all the silliness we sometimes see in washington this could be the one issue we come behind and do the right thing for the children and the economy. i am very hopeful. i feel the urgency. i want to go into the new school year with a much better law with this law fixed. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i have several narrow questions i'd like permission to submit to the secretary for written response rather than using up my time. >> without objection. >> and i have, first of all, in my part of the world, a lot of citizens are quite surprised to find what a small fraction of local k-12 education budgets

actually come from the federal government. it's in the middle single digits in most of the districts. >> 8% to 10% usually. >> even a little lower in some of the districts. and in our state and district as all over the country we have our share of poverty but we have joint school districts and as a result that kind of moves things toward the average and the money doesn't follow the student. so we have a lot of poor kids who aren't getting help from programs that are designed normally to help poor students. and the districts as a result have an extra burden placed on them that they don't have the resources to meet. do you have any ideas or are there things that we could do to try to better fund, direct funding better toward the students who in fact are poverty students and who have need rather than to the districts in which they may happen to reside?

>> well, i think when you have scarce resources as we do in every district around the country will tell you these are the toughest budget times in a long time, we have to make sure we're getting great bang for our buck and we're getting results so whether it's following the money down to the child, whether it's looking into how those investments are being made, we have to ask those questions. and whether it's title one dollars you're referring to, i.d.e.a. dollars the chairman is speaking about, we have to make sure that every single scarce taxpayer dollars have an impact on children. tough budget times, a time to re-evaluate your priorities. districts are doing things that aren't having an impact you have to make tough calls and stop doing those and put the scarce dollars where they make a difference. if that money is getting lost in the bureaucracy or not really helping poor students be successful academically and break cycles of poverty because they're getting great education we have to challenge that status quo. >> my problem is that the

district doesn't qualify because it may have 20% of kids who are in poverty but it's not getting funding because it doesn't have 70% or 80% or the whole district doesn't fit within a quality -- it would be much -- it would be, i think, more equitable to count the number of people who qualify as we do with the school lunch program for example or things like that and let the money go to the -- not follow the student individually necessary -- there are some problems with that. but go to the district in which they reside rather than disqualifying a district if it doesn't reach a certain threshold. >> i understand the point. >> the other complaint we have is as you could imagine with a relatively small percentage of dollars coming from the federal government, in the single digits, the stove piping or siloing of all of these different programs really means either you can't really effectively use -- utilize many

of the smaller ones or you lack any flexibility in tailoring the dollars to local needs by consolidating in a way that you could actually get something done. is there anything we can do to provide low funding districts with a little more flexibility or somehow allow people to manage the resources to actually do a better job? >> absolutely. and i encourage you to please keep pushing very hard on this. we talked about consolidating 38 programs down to 11. that means a lot less stove piping. it means much more accessible pools of fund. funds to districts. we've met with all the governors the past week. we had all the documents. it talks about existing flexibility. it isn't always used. obviously our whole goal in reauthorizing is to provide much more flexibility than what exists today. those are a number of steps we have taken, are taking in the right direction, great conversations with governors and local students on this, and i think if we can reauthorize

together we can take another very dramatic step in that direction. again, for me, the huge tradeoff in all of this is where we're raising standards. we're having a high bar. i want to hold folks accountable to that bar and give them a lot more room to get there. get out of the micro management. i think that is the tradeoff you're seeing around the country. it's the right thing for children and education and continue to push us hard to find ways to be more flexible, to be more innovative, to be less stove pipy, and if folks can spend less time dealing with us in the bureaucracy and more time teaching children to read, that would be a really good thing. we've met the enemy and it's us. we have a lot of different groups, money is set aside for this need or that and it's been impossible to resist. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, a pleasure to have you here. currently, we measure school performance based upon student achievement on required state

reading and mathematic achievements. what other indicators could be used to expand accountability and measure student growth, that we talk about growth models. could attendance be one of the factors we could measure? graduation. aside from the number of students involved in attendance and graduation, that may have a cumulative effect upon the attitude within that school. could there be other measures in which we can determine the progress of the school? >> absolutely. so i think at the end of the day graduation rates are hugely important. i think all of you know now we have about 25% dropout rate in this country. that is economically unsustainable and it's morally unacceptable. high school dropouts today have no chance, none, to get a good paying job to support their family so we have to look at graduation rates. longer term we have to look at what happens after graduation.

are folks going to two-year community colleges, four-year universities, trade technical vocational training? are they persevering? were they really ready? i keep saying we have to get higher education out of the remediation communities and many communities 30%, 40%, 50% of students who graduate from high school are taking a remedial class in college because they weren't ready. we were lying to them. looking at perseverance beyond high school is very important. attendance rates are what i call a huge, leading indicator of what's going to happen. if you want to identify high school dropouts, look at kindergarten attendance rates. and where you have students missing, you know, 90% on a test sounds good. 90% attendance means that student is missing 18 days on 180 school day year. that is a month of school they're missing. if you want to increase the outcomes you have to look at attendance rates. we want to put out there, we should ask teachers and students how they feel about the school. do they feel supported? is there an adult they can talk to? i think those kinds of climate surveys would be a great indicator. there's been significant

research that where there is a climate of trust in schools, you see innovation creativity, when there is significant distrust amongst the administration staff, students' needs aren't being met. so i think there are multiple indicators and we should be looking at them both as leading and lagging indicators to better ascertain how schools are moving. >> and again, we write that into law so the states will have that guidance and be assured that somehow we will let them measure those things and determine -- >> i think the flexibility now and i'm not sure they should be held accountable for every single one of these but schools being really smart in terms of driving student achievement are looking at discipline issues, truancy, looking at those things. we can have a discussion how it fits into it. just to give one more anecdote, the school we had friday, miami central high school, the first year of a turn-around, no test scores yet, no new graduating classes, but in one year discipline problems have gone down 60%. that's a pretty good leading indicator that school is going

in the right direction. still huge challenges, still a long way to go but when you have a 60% dropout -- 60% reduction in discipline challenges it makes you very hopeful about where that school is going. >> could we assign a certain percentage of how we would evaluate that attendance or the graduation, a certain percentage of their total score to give them some incentive to work on that? because some schools don't do a good job. >> there are huge variations in these things. i'm not sure if we should assign a percentage or not but getting schools focused on what i call these leading indicators, attendance, truancy, discipline issues, trust, collaboration, those leading indicators are hugely predictive of where schools are going and getting much better focus and again my point sharing best practices where folks are doing creative things to reduce truancy and dropouts and keep students more engaged, we need to replicate and build upon those best practices and reward that.

we don't provide any rewards now in the current law. that has to change. >> let me ask you this. can we address the fact that a sub group may keep a school from achieving ayp without neglecting our responsibilities for those students who are in this sub group? >> we can address that. to me, it's still important that we take care of every single child but if you have, sometimes, literally one or two children and one sub group who are struggling, let's get them the help they need. let's give them support they need. let's look at what is going on during the school, after school, at home, what we do to help those students be successful. but with the current law, you have to provide tutoring for the whole school. 1500 children in the school. 1498 might be doing pretty well. let's target those scarce resources on those handful of children who need the help so we can be much more thoughtful, have just much greater common sense if we fix this law. >> i appreciate that answer very much. thanks a lot mr. secretary.

>> thank you. the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, secretary duncan. nice to see you again. i've got a -- i hope i can make my question short but you have the race to the top program and i think that came in where really the members of this committee did not really have much to do with it. it was kind of started and then presented to us. and i think that has bothered some of us. and then the competition that a lot of the states went through and two were chosen and then ten were chosen. but it seems to be, and i didn't realize that there are so many states that are also adopting a lot of those reforms, moving ahead with them even though they were not awarded any funding for it and particularly one of them was illinois that i didn't

realize how much in debt they had -- how much in depth they had gone and how they were really working with it. how is that program going to work with the k-12 reauthorization? is there going to be kind of a melding? are we going to use the practices that reforms for race to the top? >> what we're seeing again is so important. i emphasized we've heard the federal spending is 8% to 10% and for less than 1% of what we spend k-12 we have 41 states adopt college and career ready standards for the first time in this country a child in massachusetts and a child in illinois and a child in mississippi is going to be held to the same standard. that is, i can't over emphasize how important that is long term for our children and our country. we have 44 states working together in two different consortiums. the next generation of assessments. we've had about three dozen states remove barriers to innovative schools. we had some states, i learned this coming to washington, didn't know it before. we have some states that have

laws on the books that made it illegal, that prohibited the linking of student achievement and teacher effectiveness, all of those laws are gone. and so the benefits went way beyond a dozen or so states that receive money. moving forward if we're forced in to receive another round of race to the top funding we want to focus on the district level. we've seen dramatic breakthroughs. we want districts to continue in that direction. that is just one set of resources. the invested innovation funneled is all about skill and best practices. we were able to fund about 49 of those. we have 1700 applicants from around the country. this huge outpouring of creativity. we want to replicate jeffrey cannon's work in the harlem children's zone the community level promise neighborhoods initiative. so at the community level, district level, and state level we think we continue to get these kinds of transformational breakthroughs that frankly we haven't seen for far too long in this country. >> do you think that the k-12 and the reauthorization will involve a lot of that?

i know there are also concerns about national standards. you talked about coalitions of states. so that we're not going to -- you're not going to become the superintendent of public education. we're not going to become the school board absolutely not. zero interest in that. that would be a step in the wrong direction. this is all about states voluntarily working together. this is all driven by courageous governors, republican, democratic, courageous state school chief officers saying we're tired of lying to children. we're tired of dumbing down standards. and not to take one more second but this is so important to me personally because you and i come from one of those states that dummie down standards. not because it's good for children or good for education but because it's good for politicians. and i'm so thankful illinois is amongst those states that have raised standards and we're going to get out of the business of lying to children and tell them the truth in third grade and fifth grade and eighth grade and 11th grade. are they truly college and career ready?

when i ran the chicago public schools we stopped paying attention to a lot of what the state was doing because we thought it was standing in the way of where we needed to go for our children. >> thank you. just one more quick question and that's on the homeless children which i've worked a lot on. i think that the definition of homeless in the education is so important. having the same standards so we are seeing so many young, you know, from birth to 6 -- so many of the children are in these homeless shelters and are not really getting the education that they need. >> you've been a passionate advocate on this issue. i appreciate it so much. as you know, unfortunately, the number of homeless students and homeless families is raising significantly. and i have a tremendous working relationship with secretary donovan in hud. he has been a great partner in a host of areas doing some creative things and i absolutely

promise to work with him on this specific issue. >> appreciate it. yield back. >> thank you very much. mr. andrews, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome back and thank you for your continuing accessibility and openness to ideas. it is very much appreciated. i share mr. chairman klein's opinion there is a better way to get to our common goal of gainful employment of assuring taxpayers and students we're getting value for the dollar and urge you to continue working with us on those you have. i am appreciative of that. i want to ask some questions about no child left behind and what i hope is an equally collaborative effort to improve that law. are you in favor of instituting a growth model for measuring ayp? >> absolutely. so i'm to be -- we have to focus on growth and gain. and i'm happy to go into some depth about why that's important. but that is critically important to moving the country in the right direction.

>> okay. i think that's something there is an awful lot of common ground on. secondly on no child left behind, your department has been extremely helpful in calling together leading educators and distance learning and online learning for which we're appreciative. i wonder what your thoughts were about including on the menu of school improvement options high quality, duly accredit online learning as one of the options that schools could look at when they're in the needs improvement category? >> it's a conversation we can absolutely have. it's interesting. this morning i met with a number of the leading tech executives from around the country and you know this as well as i do it is so interesting to me that there is another area frankly where education has lagged. technology has transformed how we do business. it's transformed how we interact socially. it is leading to democracy around the world and education -- it is touched but not profoundly changed. and i think technology, distance

learning, engaging students, not six hours a day five days a week but 24/7. the school we were at yesterday the president, melinda gates, they're sending home assignments on cell phones. almost every child in this country today rich or poor -- >> one thing to make our kids stop looking at their phones all the time. pretty good idea. >> i think we have been far too slow in education to learn and get the benefits of engaging students in different ways. i think technology can play a huge role, particularly in tough, economic times of getting much better results. >> many of the districts that aren't making ayp aren't making it because of deficiencies in special education. and there are two takes on why that is. the first is the schools aren't doing a good enough job in raising the achievement of classified kids. second is the standards are really inappropriate for those children. where would you like to see us go on treating special education under no child left behind? >> let me just say and repeat

what i said in my statement is that i give the current nco log great credit for shining spotlight on english language learners, homeless students, students with special needs. i think those are students who unfortunately far too often got swept under the rug and this idea of desegregating data and looking at achievement gaps, i'm focused on and we will absolutely continue. the bar far too often was lowered for students with special needs. i am all about raising the bar and expectations and holding schools, districts, states accountable for much better outcomes for young people. at the end of the day it is not about this test score or that. if you look at unemployment rates for students with special needs once they leave, they are devastatingly high. this is about having every single child again regardless of ability or disability having a chance to fulfill their potential. >> one thing i worry about is that it can actually add to the stigma of the special needs child if the child's held to an unrealistic set of expectations.

i'm with you. i want that child to absolutely reach every ounce of potential he or she has. but as schools begin to feel like they're not hitting ayp because of unrealistic standards on special-ed i think it actually adds to the stigma for those children which i don't think we want to do. >> another reason to fix the law. >> very quickly, finally, the chairman made reference to the increase in education spending since you took over. if you had to guess, and if you want to do it for the record go ahead. what percentage of the increase is going to college scholarships, teachers of reading and math, direct services to children, and students, and what percentage has been overhead? >> i don't have hard numbers. i will just say that my general principle is we have to continue to reduce overhead at our level, at the state level, at the local level. we have to give scarce resources to classrooms. we have to give scarce resources to the children and communities who need the most help. i think other countries, i've spent a lot of time studying the data of higher performing countries and it is fascinating

to look at lessons learned. one of the things many of the high performing countries have done is they've done an infinitely better job of closing achievement gaps, working with disadvantaged and poor children. >> i'd also note they've done a better job investing in education than we have in some cases and i thank the chairman and yield back. >> i thank you. >> thank you for being here today, mr. duncan. we appreciate it. i want to ask you a question also about expenditures but before i ask the question i want to say that i hope you will answer the question without implying something as you did a little while ago. you answered this question i think by saying you'd reduced 38 programs to 11 in the department. however, you failed to mention that you've not cut any spending as a result of doing that.

you have no savings in reducing those departments. you're continuing to spend the same amount of money or even more. so i've related questions. number one we spend about $2 trillion in the department of education i believe since title one was implemented. and yet we've seen reading scores go down. we've seen all kinds of scores go down. you can see it on the chart. you can see how spending has gone up and yet we've achieved nothing. do you have a single program in the department of education that you can point to measurable results as a result of spending from the federal government? can you prove anything has come out of $1 of spending from the

federal government? >> i don't know if i can prove $1 of spending. i can tell you outcomes for students with special needs have improved significantly. outcomes for students who are english language learners have improved significantly. we are an investor, coinvestor at the state and local level. again, only 8% to 10% of the money comes from us. still huge gaps there, still unacceptable gaps. but those have gone in the right direction. so i think we have to continue to invest. your initial point is absolutely right. at a time when the president is asking to flat line, domestic spending in a very tough budget time, he is asking for a $2 billion increase in education spending. and he fundamentally believes and i absolutely share that belief that we have to invest. we have to build, we have to educate our way to a better economy. better early childhood education, k-12 perform, more access to pell grants. >> let me stop you, though. tell me where you had success that justifies that other than

in special needs you've pointed that out but can you point to federal dollars creating the success? that's what i'm asking. >> well, again, we don't just fund any one program ourselves. we coinvest with states and local districts but there are lots of places, not just special needs, but title one schools where you're seeing remarkable results. i can point you to hundreds and hundreds of schools that are 99% poor, 99% minority, where 95% of young people are graduating and going to college prepared to be successful and our resources are helping create those opportunities, absolutely. >> i'll wait to get some specific information from you. thank you. >> gentle lady yields back. ms. woolsey, you're recognized. >> thank you. secretary, can you give us a little bit more -- i have two subjects i'm going to try, two

and a half and two and a half minutes on each. is there more detail you could provide us regarding rewriting of esa and how we're going to fund through state and local education agencies the proposed effective teaching and learning for a well-rounded education program? i'm specifically interested in core subjects like music and arts and worried that they'll be grouped with other nontested subjects and hoping that each subject will get us their own share of federal funds. so that schools will actually have an incentive to educate the whole child. >> yes, a great question. and it's arguably the biggest complaint i've heard from students themselves and parent and teachers is a narrowing of the curriculum under ncob. i've heard of urban, rural, suburban, you name it. we actually want to invest about a billion dollars behind what we call well rounded education and i think reading and math are

fundamental, foundational, but science, social studies, history, foreign language, environmental literacy, financial literacy, dance, drama, art, music, physical education, our students desperately need and deserve a well-rounded curriculum and education and we want to put a billion dollars behind that. let me say one more thing. it is so important that not happen just in high school but in first and second and third grade. it starts to develop their sense of self-esteem and they start to figure out their passions and if we're serious about reducing dropout rates and having many more students be successful and engaged in achievement gaps we have to do it through a well rounded education. >> that's good to hear. second subject. i'd like to talk about, and i'm really pleased that in the president's budget request he's asked for $150 million for promise neighborhoods. this is an issue that's very important to me and has been for a long time.

because so many of our kids go to school not ready to learn. and we know they go to school hungry. they need medical care. they don't have help with their homework. so tell me what you know -- how is this program going and how are we encouraging more schools and communities to come together so that they actually can provide the community services and have them located at the school site or someplace convenient? >> i'm just absolutely convinced the promise neighborhoods has unleashed this huge amount of creativity. it's funded this past year, about 20 communities for planning grants. we had over 300 communities apply. so you have folks coming together, nonprofit, social service agencies, faith based institutions, k-12 districts, higher education coming together saying our children deserve so

much better. i desperately wish we could have funded 200 of those 300. we had money to do 20. the $150 million we're requesting from congress will help us move from planning toward implementation. we will open that up to the country and i promise you we are going to have hundreds and hundreds of applicants. we only want to work in our nation's most distressed community and to give those children a chance to get a great education, to rally the entire community behind that effort. again, just like race to the top, obviously the vast majority of communities we were unfortunately able to fund in planning, many of them are moving toward -- they brought them to the table, outside their comfort zones, they're working together and that in and of itself has been absolutely invaluable. >> i'm sure you are able to track how much is saved in the long run by providing these services close at home. so i think i have time for one more subject. and that's stem education for girls and minorities, mr. secretary. and we know young girls and

minorities are losing interest in science and math at a much, too young an age. they're not choosing to pursue more advanced classes in high school or careers in these fields. how do you plan and how do you propose effective teaching and learning for science technology, engineering and mathematics programs? how are we going to increase this interest? because that is the future of our country. >> yesterday the president and i and linda gates were at tech boston, an amazing high school in boston. the vast majority of children live below the poverty line, come from very tough community. 95%, huge graduation rates, vast majority of graduates going on to college. an amazing stem focus. so there's $206 million budget for effective teaching and learning to support the stem area. we have $80 million specifically to help prepare and retain stem teachers. there's $185 million request for

new presidential teaching fellowship program, to help talented students who attend top tier teacher preparation programs to go into high needs fields like stem. we have a huge focus on stem in the investment innovation funneled and we want to put many more resources into r&d to continue to learn in this area. at the end of the day the president has given a simple challenge. he wants us to recruit, attract, and retain 100,000 new stem teachers as we move forward. we have the baby boom generation retiring. the only way we do a better job of reaching women and girls is making sure we have many more teachers not just in high school but in the primary grades who have a love for stem education. working through traditional pathways to increase the number and i'm a big fan of recertification. i want more folks who know chemistry, know biology, physics, coming in to do this work and we want to be innovative in bringing in that next generation. >> we look forward to working with you on that. the gentle lady's time has

expired. i'm always so excited when i hear you talk about alternative certification. >> thank you. >> i want to thank the secretary for being here. this is the fourth time and i've seen you more than any of the other secretaries and i appreciate your passion for what you do. i truly mean that. and what you tried to do and did some great things in chicago, i have a son that lives there, speaks very highly of you so thank you for that. you have probably one of the hardest jobs in america. one of the things that i have done when i go to rural east tennessee where i live is go see my teachers. i thought doctors were frustrated. you go get 40 or 50 teachers together and you'll get your ears pinned back. part of the reason is because of all of the bureaucracy we've created, the hoops they have to jump through. remember i'm in a race to the top state. tennessee. we were one of the two states first selected. we're in the process. i had the teachers explain to me, what does this race to the top mean to you and how is it

helping you when you're teaching in the first grade? when you're teaching in the second and third grade? and i really couldn't get a good explanation from the teacher who was actually being observed, so -- and this is the graph that i think that concerns me the most. we're going to have an 11% increase in spending as proposed in this budget and i was a mayor of johnson city, tennessee, before i came here. and you're absolutely correct. there were days if i could have written the federal government a check for the money they sent and put it below 1% we got in our community because the city, the county, and the state put the money in, it was a very small amount, but the teachers spend an inordinate amount of time qualifying. this is the graph that bothers me right here is the increase in federal spending and yet the outcomes were not -- we're not getting anything for our money so i think the accountability and right here when you see more and more and more spending, but we're not getting any results for it. >> so a couple thoughts. first of all, i think tennessee

has a chance to not just transform education in the state but help lead the country where we need to go. i have tremendous confidence in your new governor. he's passionate on this issue. you just, in the past couple days appointed a new state superintendent who is a nontraditional candidate, kevin hoffman, who i have tremendous respect for and actually met with him earlier and i think he'll do a great job. so i'm very, very hopeful about where the state can go and where the state can help to lead the country. your historical point for the country, does more dollars equate to better outcomes? of course not. to me what we try to drive from day one is this combination of investment but investment not in the status quo, investment in reform and whether that is at the early childhood level, the k-12 reform, or whether it's trying to increase access and completion rates at the higher end it can't be investment in a status quo with a 25% dropout rate. >> i think if you, and i think congresswoman woolsey may have mentioned it, but i think if a

child can't read by the third or fourth grade, and all of the teachers that were patients of mine through the years could predict who was going to drop out by the fourth grade, if we could do that, then that's where we ought to emphasize instead of worrying about all these other things because you're never going to -- if you're never going to graduate you know by the time you're 10 years old that is where you need to invest the money. the other frustration i had in hearing something was we have 96,000 schools in america. i think i heard this testimony last year, the year before last. 2,000 of those account for 50% of our dropouts. >> so a couple thoughts. your basic point on early investment, i couldn't agree with more. if we can have our babies, our 3 and 4-year-olds enter kindergarten ready to read and learn with their socialization skills intact, it gives us a great opportunity. we have to invest early in the level playing field. i urge you not to give up on those children who are behind. i spent a lot of time in chicago working in a tough community with teenagers who started way

behind and just hadn't had the opportunity and caught up quickly when challenged and with real support. so it is much tougher work. i'd love to get us all out of the catch up business and we have to do much better at the early side but where students don't have the opportunities we still need to provide a chance for them to get better. >> i totally agree. i think one of the other things i have with this frustration is it's so many teachers, half of our teachers who graduate from college don't teach in five years. there is a reason for that. i think part of the reason is the -- well, there are many reasons i'm sure, but all of the paperwork, it doesn't add anything to the classroom. i am very frustrated about that. >> so again, i just urge you to hold us accountable and push us everywhere i go. i ask teachers, principals, superintendents, state superintendents, tell us what we're doing to get in your way. tell us what requirements -- there is a series of reporting requirements that are duplicative we've already changed so we are trying to get better here but you think about the teacher. they're hit at the local level, district hit at the state, hit by us. it's too by us, it's too much.

we are trying to lead by example. the more you challenge us to get rid of nonhelpful paperwork, we have to do that. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. secretary duncan, it's always a pleasure to have you testify before our committee. i commend you on the work you are doing on investing in education these couple of years you have been heading the department of education. i want to ask a question that is easy and doesn't cost much money. that is that there are some school districts in the great state of texas that start school early august, not after labor day and you spoke about increasing school average daily attendance above 90%, which is

being done today in some of my school districts in my district, so i know it's doable. but, if we could give the flu shots to the students in early august as well as the teachers and maybe the staff that serve them in the cafeteria and drive the busses, i think we would have fewer children getting sick and more being able to attend. that should be easy and same cost that we do it in august versus doing it in october. is that something you can support? >> absolutely and work very, very close with secretary sebelius on issues. h1n1 she did a remarkable job. it makes all the sense in the world. >> i'll send you a memo because we need it in texas. i also want to say i believe our nation must do more to expand accessibility and affordability to access higher education. what is your vision for hsi,

tcu's and other msi's. what type of outcomes do you expect and what is your time line for the upcoming hsi grant competition? >> hsi or hsbu's can't simply survive. we have to help them thrive. we continue to invest significantly in them. obviously the pell grant increases are very significant to those populations. we direct fund hsis and have increased the funding over time. we want to put into place the hawkins scholarship. so many teachers of color come through that. i want a more diverse work force. the administrators don't reflect the diversity of students. we have to work on that. we are going to continue to

invest in hsi and hscbu. the final thing i'll say is i visited a number of them and continue to recruit more teachers of color to come into education. frankly, many schools haven't shown leadership in this area. hsi is a natural phenomenal pipeline of teacher talent for the classrooms. >> i commend you for what you have done in increasing the funding. it definitely exceeds what we did in 1946 with the gi bill and so i commend you. now, we need a time line to get into the competition and get to that money and recruit students into colleges. last question, if i still have time would be that the we reintroduce hr 778 the graduation promise act and that

we must transform the nation's factories. how do you propose to build the capacity of the nation's lowest performing high schools and middle schools? >> this is where the school grant is so important for the horrendous drop out rate. we have 100,000 schools. 2,000 produce the drop outs. 75% of the drop outs are african-american and latino boys and girls. this idea of reform, we have 1,000 schools for the first time in the country being turned around as we speak. we have to continue to challenge and invest. unfortunately, as you know all too well congressman, in many communities these schools have been a drop out factor for decades, ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. this has not gotten a lot of

media attention because it's been a lot of hard work and controversy. everyone, school leaders, scu t superintendents, school boards doing different things for students. they won't turn out to be as. some will be okay. for the first time, our country is encouraged doing this work. it makes me hopeful of where we can be. >> thank you. my time has expired. >> thank the gentleman. >> thank you mr. chairman. nobody at this point has asked, but i think there are important points to continue forward. the department of education doesn't seem to be the only department with a graph like the one we saw with increased spending with actual results and as refreshing as we sit in this committee today, it's a

bipartisan discussion. one thing my colleagues might agree on is one of the biggest impedestrianmen impediments. the department of education has been with us over three decades and we are not seeing the outcomes. one of the things we have not touched on is where the teachers come into the picture here. we had a panel a couple weeks ago where we asked them, what were the top three things they are hearing from teachers. i'm sure you get an earful. what would you say are the top three concerns you are hearing from our educators? >> let me go back one more point on the results we saw. we are not, again, not the same level as other countries. we are at a disadvantage.

complacent teachers, the well-rounded curriculum i talked about. it's a huge challenge teachers struggle with. i haven't met a teacher yet who is scared of accountability. they want to be fair. the idea of growth and gain is a huge one for them. if you are my teacher and i come to you three grade levels behind and i leave you a grade level behind you have done a great job on me. under the current law, you are a failure. you have accelerated my learning. we have to focus on that. teachers want to be held to a fair standard and want the room to be creative. to me, it's where there's a high bar, more flexibility at the school level and district level. we have to look at that. room to move. better accountability and a well-rounded education i think are among the tops of great

educators. >> i think that's fair. the teachers i have spoken with would echo that. as a physician, i get to have lots of conversations about teaching. one of the concerns is lack of discipline in the classrooms. i thought it was interesting that you said a school in miami showed an improvement with the discipline problem and it was headed in the right direction. there's an area of focus. i hear from teachers they cannot control their classroom. the second thing is they seem to be lacking, a little bit, in terms of pride in their profession. i think it's because of the beaurocracy and regulation. if we have frustrated teachers, we are less effective teachers. in a sense they can handcuff the lack of flexibility. i know in tennessee, they have to teach to the standardized

testing and they have a lot of pressure put on them by the administration to make those numbers the way they should be. when we were kids, a standardized test came in from recess, dropped it on your desk and said teach it. >> if you are teaching to a test, the best way students do well is give them rich content and to have them be creative in doing that. again, when the curriculum is narrowed and teaching to the test, it's not good for children or teachers. we can have a high bar, giving teachers lots of room to hit the bar and be creative is important. the other important is critically important. it's true, the teaching has been beaten down. we have to elevate the profession. in our high performing countries around the globe, teachers are

revered in south korea they are nation builders. it's a powerful concept. our teachers have to be considered or believed to be nation builders. we lose too many good young teachers due to lack of support and crash of management skills. the only way we are going to get to where we need to go, lead the world is to recruit and retain the hardest working young people. other countries have done it and we haven't. we can get better at it. >> thank you. i appreciate your comments. i yield back my time. >> mr. secretary, how are you? sorry i wasn't able to be with you yesterday in massachusetts. i appreciated your visit. i think everybody is interested in eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. i commend the fact that you and the president are spending time making sure it's eliminated in

the education budget. i think we have cut beyond those areas and into the bone. both the white house and congress have the coverage of taking on the larger issue of paying your fair share. at the end of last year, this congress and the white house allowed for continued tax so people weren't paying their fair share. $800 billion over ten years. we have uncollected tax ek pendtures to corporations every year. we have the lowest tax corporate rate of all countries. google paid 2.4% tax rate last year. the do no harm first company. ge and bowing paid no taxes over the last several years. we are debating on eliminating and reducing very important programs. there's a lack of courage of profiles on a number of occasions and i think we have to find some if we want to do it.

there was a good statement, the balance is wonderful. you are on a bicycle trying to balance standing still, you fall over. you have to pedal forward. we have to pedal forward to outdo china and germany. we have to have a sound investment in education. pell grants is an area on that. it's great concern we see hr-1 eliminating 9.5 million college students $800 each. 135,000 in my state of massachusetts. 1.7 million low income students aren't going to qualify if the cut is maintained. there's great concern there. there's also a concern among many and many about the administration's proposal to eliminate the pell grant and summer studies.

some mention well it hasn't been shown to speed up, but it haven't been in place long enough to get an associates degree. if we are going to compete on that, we have to get people through and get that degree and back to work or out in the first instance. how do you expect to meet the need and eliminate the program. >> i appreciate your thoughts on this. where we scaled back $800 to $900 on pell grants, it means there are a lot of young people working hard, coming from families struggling financially. what's amazing to me that we haven't talked about, at a time of high unemployment, we have hundreds of jobs untilled each day because we don't have the workers to fill those jobs. it's amazing to hear how many ceo's are trying to hire and

there isn't the talent we are creating to fill the jobs. any cutback to pell would have devastating long term effects. jobs and companies and corporations are going to go to where they are. it's going to be our country or other countries. we are going to be at a competitive vantage or not just low-skill jobs but high-skilled jobs of the future. we have to invest there. obviously the decision to say no to pell grants, is not one that i enjoyed or wanted to make or felt good about. it's simply in tough budget times trying to make a decision to conserve the money for the people who use the pell grants. it's a savings of $7 billion. in an ideal world, would i choose to do that? of course not.

>> a student aid expert says federal income tax revenue would pay for the cost of double in pell grants. let me ask you one more question. in the higher education opportunity, in the house, i put in a provision in the senate with respect to model programs and higher education. the chairman has a concern about that as do many others. it's only $11 million. the fact of the matter is for model programs and particularly community colleges with a number of students who put the models together. is there a way to take a look at that? there's a serious need with children ageing into that grouping that need to have sustainable way to get through life. >> if i may, the gentleman's time expired and we would love the answer for the record. >> happy to look at it.

>> thank you, gentlemen. mr. hunter. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. secretary, great to see you. love your name. he was just talking about taxes and how much we are spending. in comparison to china, if you add state, low candidate spending, we are paying more per kid than i think any other nation if you add everything together. i don't know the answer to this question. i'm pretty sure we pay more state, local and federal than any other country. what is the real correlation between spending cash and getting good results in education? when you look at china or any other country, germany was mentioned, any other country you throw out there. obviously, their structure is different.

south korea, they have a different structure. it's not just about money and increasing funding into the future forever. what is it then? what's the corelation? >> to be clear, i'm not pushing more investment in the status quo, i'm pushing in the direction we need to go. a couple things, i can make a compelling case, the best investment we can make long term and the savings to our society is huge. what you see in other countries, they have been smarter and more strategic in how they invest. other countries target the students in need of the most help. i think we have to continue to increase access to higher education. again, there's so few good jobs out there if you have a high school diploma. it's not looking at investment for status quo. i am advocating for investment

in an area they need to. >> we are going to spend more per kid and we are not seeing any corelation between the spending and the actual result. so, why not change the entire structure, then, if we are going to do that and reinvest the money we have into a different system, which is what you are doing and we are trying to do here. why increase it at all? if you cut and find savings, then we could talk about the pell grants and things like that. >> so, again, you and i may disagree on it. i think going forward, we are going to see many more young people trying to go to college and get a higher education, four year, two year. years ago, you didn't need that. you could graduate from high school and still get a good job, own your own home and support your family. all those jobs are gone. in a knowledge-based society,

38-year-olds and 58-year-olds are going back. the pell grant requests have gone up significantly. >> which i understand. i understand all this. talking k-12. if it's the structure that really matters and it's not increasing funding for a bad system, why not just take away the bad spending, if you will, the things you don't believe in and restructure and reinvest and try to get more funding that increases funding for a kid, which had not been proven it has correlation to the results? >> i would argue with the increased investment and the opportunity to drive systemic change, you are seeing breakthroughs you have never seen in the country. again, 41 states raising standards for the first time ever, voluntarily. not dummy downed standards. they are working together on the assessments. three dozen states eliminating

barriers. every state eliminating laws that prohibited the student achievement and teacher evaluation. all of that happened in part of our ability to reward great behavior. >> are we still spending on bad along with the good? >> no question. we have to continue on every dollar we handed out to governors. you have to make tough calls. we handed out a document we would be happy to share. there are smart ways to cut and dumb ways to cut. i worry about it. >> could you see being successful if the amount of funding does not go up, could you still be successful if you cut the right way and put the money into the systems that you know work? could you do that? >> we have to do that anyway. i continue to think we underinvest. we underinvest significantly in

the most disadvantaged children's community. >> thank you for your testimony. thank you mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. miss davis. >> thank you for working so closely with the committee. despite the overwhelming evidence that teachers matter most when it comes to learning, low-income students receive their fair share of access to teachers. we would wish that all, even the most ordinary of teachers could become extraordinary. i think that's the goal in any system to do that. the reality is, as long as there are inequities of teaching from classroom to classroom and school to school, we are still going to see gaps in the achievement and it's tough to close the gap. you mentioned that earlier. i'm wondering, in the budget itself, how can we look to that and see sea blueprint what

prompts them to ensure the students who need the strongest teachers have access to those teachers? >> i gaagain, this is a huge is. what other countries have done is they have systemically solved the problem. other countries put in place great expenses to go to the toughest communities to get the support they need. we have had almost no incentives and frankly lots of disincentives to go to underserved communities. we can't talk honestly about closing the achievement gap if we don't close the opportunity gap. we have so many examples of high poverty where students are beatling the odds because they are getting great talent there.

how are we doing it? we talked about the school improvement grants? a huge investment in the schools. what i have said very publicly, if your community cannot attract a good math or science teacher, pay that great teacher more to come and give them support they need. not everyone agrees with me on that. i don't see how our students take apal cue louse and physics without that. pay 50 grand to go to another community, use our resources to do that. we have the teacher incentive fund. we go out on a voluntary basis. we have dozens and dozens of people looking at this. i'll give you one last example. the district i think has done better than any others i have seen is char lat. they have 20 schools under performed. you are putting the best talent into those schools.

i met with a set of teachers and principals taking on this work. one of the principals said to me, he was a star principal and about to retire. he was given the opportunity to go to a tough school. he said, this is the most moral and ethical work i have done in my career. to me, it's a profound statement. they are systemically, through support, getting great talent. >> for those schools not applying for grants or the schools or states are not applying for grants, obviously, there are many schools not in that position or don't choose to do that. how do we do that? it ties in with evaluations. >> they go to every state. every state we give that money to. figure out the bottom 5% of schools. if you need after school. go to school on saturdays, go

all summer. whatever it takes, more teacher planning time, more awards for teachers, whatever it takes. that went out by form to every state in the country. >> are there some outside, value day tors or mediators to help schools do this when there's a lot of resistance? what do you suggest? >> is the country -- we are in our infancy. i'm so proud that historically, there are literally a handful of schools turned around. this school year, there are 1,000 schools being turned around. we are starting to build a community of practice. we are learning what works and what doesn't. you are starting to have critical mass doing the work. we want to do more every year and come back. if we can turn around the bottom 5% of schools in the country over the next three or four or five years, the difference it's

going to make is huge. there's growing awareness. again, amazing courage that i have seen. union leaders, district superintendent school board members doing things very, very differently. i'm five years from now, we will be at a different place. >> how is it being shared? they can find it other ways. >> excuse me, her time has expired. >> we'll continue. >> thank the gentle lady. it is mr. barlotta. >> thank you mr. chairman and secretary duncan for your time here today. last month, this committee heard testimony from mr. andrew olson from the cato institute. on the lack of meaningful return on our investment of federal funds with one notable exception, the dc opportunity scholarship program. yet this administration has not

supported that and put forward a budget proposal that increases spending on other programs that have not significantly approved student achievement. when the nation is facing inconceivable debt levels and the taxpayers have been clear about washington getting the fiscal house in order, my question is, how can we afford to ignore successful programs like the d.c. choice and keep pouring money into costly programs that haven't shown results? >> on a d.c. scholarship program, we supported them. if you look at the data, it was mixed. i'll go back and look. it was after reading and math went up. the other one did not go up significantly. what i said repeatedly is the private sector, individuals,

fill a philanthropy. they are not just saving two or three children and leaving the other 500 to drown. the d.c. school system is going in the right direction. long way to go, but real progress and my goal has to be to help every single child and have a great system of public schools so we can't just go to bed and be comfortable having saved a couple. that's been the mentality. the d.c. public school has been through disaster. we allowed that to exist and be the status quo. we have seen more progress in d.c. than in a long time. we want to make d.c. a world class system and i think we have the opportunity to do that with local leadership. >> i yield back my time. >> i thank the gentleman. >> thank you mr. chair. mr. secretary, good to see you today.

thanks for being here. i appreciate almost everything, not quite everything, but almost everything or at least much of what you and the president are trying to do on the education front. preschool through secondary education and graduate school for that matter. i'm happy as an iowan you have a carve out you mentioned. i'm looking forward to seeing the details of that. as i communicated over the last couple years, it's been very, very difficult for states like iowa, especially the rural school districts that don't have grant writers race to the top. also, i'm happy that over the course of the last several years, we have had a lot of discussions and you seem to be implementing the changes for nclb. certainly moving multiple mesh

sures of achievement. i think it's more important than a high-stakes test and being more flexible when it comes to subgroups. i think that's really important, too. growth models. when i first came to congress, i could not figure out why the original law was comparing one group of students one year to another. it was apples to oranges. didn't make sense to me. growth models are very important. what i want to talk about is the pell grant program and in particular, the year round pell grant program and the proposed cuts you folks are making to that program. in your fy 2012 budget, you propose to cut the pell grant program. this is a significant one. first and foremost, they help people in poverty rise to the middle class and become more

productive citizens. last year, already around the country, the first year of operation, 2009-2010, 760,000 students nationwide took advantage of access to financial aid over the summer to graduate faster and come out of college with less debt. i think it's making a bigger difference especially in community colleges. there are many colleges where they have nursing programs or other programs that really are in effect over the summer. so, for students to access pell grants over the summer, it's really, really important. i just think this doesn't make sense to cut your round pell grants for a variety of reasons. i guess what i would like you to do, if you could, is just give rational to why you are cutting the program.